The Heartless Silver Serpent's Treasure
by Vergil Diva's chevalier
Summary: Vicious is just a man in the syndicate trying to reach the top. Nothing else matters to him... until he discovers the contents of an old rusted storage container and feels something beating. Rated M for violence, mild language and drug mentions/use.
1. Heartless Snake

"You sure you want to get in this_?"_ One man asked the other as they sat on the squeaky stools of a smoke-filled bar in one of Tharsis' crummier neighborhoods.

It's sunset already and yet there are only a few customers here and there throughout the bar and the only two who seem to be doing anything other than sleeping on a counter or table are the ones sitting in the stools at the bar-counter.

"Yeah. I'm tired of the syndicate doing whatever they want. They need to come down." The second man says, roughly exhaling some smoke from his mouth as he speaks.

He wears a long dirtied jacket that's starting to tear at the shoulder and a worn-out t-shirt and jeans. His old work-boots show that his position in the syndicate is not very high. In fact, he is only a drug-runner.

However, while someone as low as he is might not be very important to the syndicate, he _is _important to the other man; the undercover agent who's working on an operation to reveal the syndicate's illegal activities.

Of course, everyone knows that the only legal thing about the Red Dragon is that they didn't steal their name from another company. The Red Dragon Syndicate, officially called Red Dragon Enterprises, is involved with drug-trafficking, extortion, murder, and, their specialty, assassination.

The other man sitting on one of the stools wears a drab-green trench coat, pants and shirt with a blue tie; the attire of a lower-ranking but still prestigious position of an officer in the syndicate.

Members of the syndicate gain in rank or position depending on how well they do their jobs and their individual personalities, so the second man had enough experiences himself to technically put the syndicate away. But against a multibillion dollar "enterprise" like the Red Dragon, which could afford a whole city's-worth of lawyers, it paid to have as much evidence and witnesses as you could.

"Before I reveal any of my information though, how can I be sure you aren't just trying to expose any unfaithful members of the syndicate?" The smoker asked, turning to the undercover cop with a noticeable amount of skepticism.

The cop had been moving his glass from side to side, letting the ice move around, before he drank the whole thing.

"I have a family. My parents, my sister, my girlfriend, my children… they all live in one big house. If I were to try and take them down now they wouldn't be convicted and the house would turn into a slaughterhouse."

Despite the cliché story the cop, whom he didn't know was sincere, was giving him the smoker decided to believe him and sighed as he put out the cigarette.

"Okay, I'll help you. What can I do?"

The cop nodded, glad the man had believed him, and leaned in closer.

"You can start by saying you'll testify against them in court. We still need a few more people who'll speak up but I think we're really close."

He instinctively glanced over at the door as it opened and a man wearing a hat and a trench coat with the collar up entered. His face couldn't be seen because of how dark it was in the bar but the cop didn't notice anything overly suspicious about him so he refocused his attention on his new witness.

"We'll need you to say how many drugs you run every time, where you get them, where you take them, what your schedule is… everything."

The smoker nodded as he started to light another cigarette; however, the lighter was not responding.

At the stool behind the smoker the man with the hat could be seen sitting down and the bartender walked over to him to ask the man what he wanted.

"Damn. Crappy-ass lighters. Hey, do you have a-"

"Yeah." The cop stuck a hand in one of his pockets and started to pull his own lighter out of it when he heard the man on the other side of the smoker speak.

His voice was quiet and mature, but as sharp and emotionless as a snake's fang.

"I'll have Bloody Mary." He spoke as the cop's hand suddenly went limp and dropped the lighter onto the tiled floor.

The smoker noticed this with irritated disappointment and leaned down to pick it up himself but the stools were too high.

"What the hell was that about?" He asked grudgingly while grasping for the fallen lighter. Just as he was going to jump off the stool and get into a crawl to reach the thing an already-lit lighter came out above his head; the small torch resting in the outstretched hand of the hat-clad man.

The smoker noticed this and thanked him as he sat up and lit his cigarette on the lighter, which was snapped closed and put back into the man's coat pocket.

When the hand came back up, however, it was holding something very different from a cigarette lighter.

"Hey, what the hell's wrong with you?" The smoker asked the cop, who still hadn't moved an inch and was now covered in a cold sweat.

"Yeah," The man with the hat spoke, his grinning face now visible.

"You look like you'd just seen a snake with its head reared back."

The smoker rotated in his stool to face the man with the hat.

"Hey, isn't it supposed to be 'seen a ghost-" His question was caught in his throat as he saw what the hat-wearing man was holding.

There was a snapping sound.

And then a slicing sound.

Another.

The smoker fell forward with a gash in his neck and chest, already dead before he hit the floor. His cigarette sent up in an ascending, and then _descending _arc towards the ground.

It was snatched out of the air by the man's hand, which was holding the hilt of a katana at the same time, blood dripping from the tip of the blade.

He took a drag on the cigarette, his stone-sharp features temporarily illuminated by the warm orange light the end of the cigarette cast on him.

Then the cigarette was dropped to the floor and the hand holding the katana whipped towards the cop.

At the last second he managed to roll out of his stool, which had its top portion cut off as a result, and slammed into the floor, drawing out his handgun and aiming it above him.

The katana-man had already turned around and his top half jolted towards the cop.

His gun went off once, twice.

The first bullet shot over the assailant's head.

The second one hit the hat off the man's head.

But the third attack made came from the swordsman, who stabbed his blade through the cop's chest.

He dropped his gun and tried to push out the katana, in vain.

Now that the hat had fallen from his head, the man's silvery-gray hair could be seen, the abnormal hair color in theme with the man's exaggerated sadistic grin.

The cop's mouth trembled as blood flowed out of it. Eventually he managed to open the faulty thing and gurgle out a word.

"V- Vicious!"

His grin widened and he tore the katana from the cop's chest, a geyser of blood briefly erupting from the man's body before he fell completely still.

Vicious' katana was returned to its home and he turned away from the dead man.

At the counter the bartender hesitantly put down the drink.

"Your- your Bloody Mary."

Vicious kept walking.

"I already had it."

* * *

First off I don't own anything from any series this is published within. Second, the main character in this story, Vicious, is not from Devil May Cry or Blood+. So people who "alerted" my penname might not know who he is. But I intend to explain his personality and the world during the story so if you don't already know him or the series he comes from then don't worry about not understanding this story because you have no history. I know the title may seem cheesy to some but I couldn't think of anything else.

Also, for some reason this was all underlined and part of it was entirely written in italics. I don't know why that is and that isn't how the rest of the story will be. I apologize if it bothered anyone's eyes(as it did mine. heh)


	2. A special assignment

Tharsis again, this time, however, it isn't a trashy bar in some crummy neighborhood.

No, _this _time it's in a hundred-story-tall building in a massive room where three golden thrones of Japanese design rest at the top of a hill of steps covered in an expensive silk carpet.

At the bottom of the steps and at the boundaries of the red carpet is another well-crafted but wooden chair which, despite its quality, shows signs of aging.

All of the room, except for the thrones and the carpet, lie in a blanket of darkness and might hide only the two-story double-doors or a hundred men with silenced pistols.

In this case, however, it only holds the doors and a man with silvery-grey hair sitting in the aged chair.

Sitting in the god-like thrones are three old men wearing expensive Japanese garb that shows their status.

It is an old-fashioned Japanese chamber.

The room, though consisting of "Western-style" walls, doors and floors, drastically separates the lowly wooden chair and the pawns meant to sit in it, and the transcendent immaculate thrones on the expensive silk carpet at the top of steps taller than the chair below them.

_"Such old-fashioned thinking makes me nauseous."_ Vicious thinks to himself as he stares up at the three corpse-like husks of men sitting in their golden stools of glory.

_"They probably can't even lift a gun anymore." _He continues in disgust.

"Vicious…" One of the mummies croaks through his dirt-old mouth.

"We have a special assignment for you."

A person's eyebrows would usually move upwards in interest at this time.

"What kind of assignment?" His fang-sharp voice asks.

"_I wonder if they can hear the venom dripping from it as well."_

"Before we tell you, you should be aware that to receive this assignment is a great honor. In fact, there is no one below you who is allowed to undertake such a task."

_"This is the part where I'm traditionally supposed to say how honored I am that they're gracing me with such a prestigious task."_

There is a silence.

Though they'll never show it, the corpses are obviously disgruntled.

"You are to protect certain merchandise from being stolen."

_"That's the great task that can't be given to anyone below me? It's child's play. Something you have a grunt take care of."_

"'Merchandise'. I don't see how it is that any object could be worth the attention of someone in such a supposedly high position as I am."

_"It's a waste of my time to even be sitting here listening to you talk about it."_

"The merchandise is worth more than this entire construct and everyone inside it."

_"No one costs anything. None of us are worth a dime."_

"Some kind of weapon?"

All three of them grin.

_"Strange. They haven't done one of those collective little sneers for years."_

"You could say that." The one on the left speaks through its fossil-like teeth.

"It is a container."

My eyes widen a thousandth of a millimeter.

"A shipping container of Bloody Eye." I say, rarely asking things in forms of questions.

"Hardly. It is of much greater worth than a simple chemical concoction."

My eyes narrow again.

_"A single vial of that concoction is worth more than ten squads of your pawns."_

"What the contents are is of no concern to you. Within the container is a much smaller one. _That _is what you must protect."

_"Some sort of radioactive compound perhaps."_

"Where is it?"

"It is in a warehouse nearby. You will receive the address once you leave this room."

_"Typical. They wouldn't have it nearby and ready. It would be in some sacred or important place at another location."_

"That is all. You're dismissed."

I stand up and turn away from them, walking across the dark room towards the doors, spotting a guard standing in front of it holding my sheathed katana.

Taking it and a slip of paper that I assume is printed with the address of the warehouse, the massive doors open slowly, filling the normally-dark room with regular electric lighting.

The sudden illumination makes the guard next to me squint his eyes and bring a hand up to shield them.

_"Such tiny dribbles of pain. To cower against it you must be just as weak and pathetic as those relics up on their red mount Fuji."_

I begin to walk through the doorway as one of the dusty old codgers calls out to me.

"One last thing, Vicious."

_"How cliché. They give one final statement before I leave."_

Normally officers turn completely around and acknowledge the "Van", the three ancient men who command the entire Red Dragon Syndicate.

It's worth a slight turn of my head back in their direction.

"Whatever you do, don't open the container. If you do it will surely mean your death."

I look forward again and walk through the doorway as the huge doors close again.

_"I won't be woken up so easily."_

* * *

I just want to make sure anyone who's reading this knows that when quotes are in italicized segments it means that Vicious is thinking(or whoever else's point of view there may be.) Also, though I'll explain it in the story later, for those who don't know about it, "Bloody Eye" is a drug(more potent than it's other variation, "Red Eye") and Vicious' comment on being "woken up" refers to his way of thinking life is like a dream. I'll explain all of this in greater detail throughout the story but I just wanted to give a quick summary of it here.


	3. The merchandise

_"How much more elaborate can this building be?" _I wonder as I take a ride down on the third elevator so far.

"_For all the money they're spending on their warehouses those damned supercentenarians could have bought out a whole other syndicate. They're nothing but a waste of space."_

Initially a guard from the first floor had been accompanying him; some random brown-haired grunt. He wasn't of much significance, and had stayed at the first basement floor.

_"But if he wasn't allowed to come down this far that suggests those elders didn't just send me somewhere to get me out of their way."_

In any case, it didn't matter. The elevator finally ceased its descent and the heavy doors slowly slid open, revealing a much more dark and dank place than the previous floors had been.

Two more guards, wearing officer's clothing and holding assault rifles, stood in front of a huge sliding metal door; its airship-like appearance suggesting that his "assignment" was just on the other side.

"_For them to abandon their usual "luxury over efficiency" policy this must be fairly important."_

As I step out of the elevator and the doors close behind me, the guards aim their assault rifles at me.

What make and model they are doesn't really matter; you could actually cut a human being in half with the power in those things if you had enough ammunition.

They tend to jam though, which makes them less reliable in long-lasting or re-occurring fights.

Not like swords; you take care of the blade and make sure everything is solid and in place. Not to mention you get to feel the person die.

With guns you have to worry about jamming, broken parts, absence of ammunition, thorough dismantling and cleaning, maximum effective range, firing speed, stopping power and safeties.

_"I'm thinking too much." _

I walk towards the guards, stepping out of the relative darkness near the area and into the area illuminated by the bright, uncovered bulbs high overhead.

Once they see who I am the two lower their weapons without having to see so much as an ID.

It's not surprising. Anyone who doesn't know me by my own reputation knows about me being the ex-partner of the once up-and-coming star Spike Spiegel.

I smirk inwardly as I think about Spike; those days were a lot of fun. You couldn't see five feet in front of you without spotting another enemy you had to kill.

Reaching the guards and the door I tell them I'm here to pick up the "merchandise" that the old fools seem to find so important.

The two look at each other, probably surprised I would refer to the "Honorable Van" in such a way.

"Open it up." I tell them, tired of waiting.

They nod and pull out card-keys from their jacket pockets and insert them simultaneously into slots on both sides of the door.

A loud beep sounds out and the huge door starts to slide with a light squeak into a wall.

Another two guards are on the other side and I wonder how important this damned stuff could be that it would require such extensive measures to be taken to keep it safe.

I walk through the doorway and into the other room which is smaller but still very big, easily larger than most two-story homes.

Only a single light illuminates this room and everything beyond its reach is completely cloaked in darkness.

When the other guards see me one of them runs off into the darkness and snaps something on.

A few moments later, previously-unseen lights at the top corners of the room flicker to life and reveal a big rusted freight container that seems to be hundreds of years old.

Rust covers the whole thing and any individual details the container might have had at a certain point, such as numbers letters or any other forms of identification, have either eroded or are covered in the prevalent dark-colored rust.

If I was the type to scoff, I would have done so right now.

Though perhaps the trashy outward appearance is just intended to deter anyone from looking inside it.

Walking forward, I wait in front of the container as the two guards in the room attempt to pull open the doors on the container.

Loud metallic strains can be heard but the two are unable to wrench the doors free.

"Hey! Come over here and help us will ya?!" One of them yells to the guards in the other room.

Reluctantly the other guards come into this room and try to help pull open the stubborn doors.

_"This is my assignment; attempt to carry something of apparently significant importance within a busted old container around with me and protect it with my life."_

"The doors are welded shut." I mention, staring at the metal in the middle of the doors that has obviously been melted together in the past.

Noticing this, the guards back away from the container and look at it.

"We don't have a cutting torch though. How're we supposed to get it open?" One of them asked no one in particular.

_"A waste of time; if this is so important why don't the guards here have a means to open it?"_

The mummies were being awfully cautious to not even give the guardians of whatever this precious cargo was a way to get to it.

"Go to the upper floors." I tell them while touching something in my coat pocket with a free hand.

They stare at me with ridiculous expressions and I wonder if this is even worth it; if they aren't even trusted with loyally watching over the container they can't be of that great of importance.

"Stay here then." I say while putting the sheathed-katana down on the cold floor and pull the thing out of my pocket.

All of them seem surprised and back off as they see what I'm holding.

_"A quarter ounce should be enough."_

I pull a small thing out of the other pocket and connect the vial with its dispenser, aiming the Red Eye drug into my own eyes.

They back away from the doors as I spray the chemical into one eye, and then the other.

My frown turns into a wild, upturned snake-like smirk as I thrust the things back into a pocket and run forward, grabbing hold of the inside of the doors and pulling on them.

Instantly a loud tearing metal sound can be heard squelching throughout the floor and quite possibly all the other levels.

But I don't care.

The container and everything else gains a slight magenta tinge as I pull harder, the sound growing louder and more horrific.

To everyone else anyway.

To _me _it's the best noise I've heard all day. The tearing sound of the doors being torn apart just exhilarates me and causes my hands to pull harder.

There's a brief silence as I stop for a second, focusing.

Then the doors fly open and slam into the outside of the container.

I stare into the blackness, looking for anything else to rend apart, but a second later the magenta tinge turns to an orange one. Then yellow and white until I finally blink and everything is back to normal.

My face returns to normal as I turn away from the container and walk back over to the katana and pick it up.

The guards stand there dumbly, staring at me.

When I look at _them _they scramble into the container and haul something out, setting it down once they get it outside.

The euphoria at having torn the doors apart was gone now, which meant that when I saw the red-wood box about the size of a coffin with golden dragons as trim I was just as irritated as usual.

_"Those fossils are going to have me carting around a childhood friend? This is the 'important merchandise' that they were warning me about?"_

"What the hell _is _that?" One of the guards asks.

"Looks like a coffin." Another one responds.

I look back into the container to see if there is anything of actual worth, but I can't see anything.

"Get a transporter." I tell the guards in general.

They look at me again, those frail, pathetic eyes looking out at me in their idiotic curiosity.

"Or carry the coffin up to my ship on the surface."

The same guard who turned the lights on walked over to a wall and pressed something on it.

Part of the wall, a hidden door, moved in and then slid into the wall, revealing a small storage room.

A second later the man pulled out an old but functional hover-trolley and moved it over to the coffin.

The other three lifted it onto the transporter and the guard who was holding it moved out of the room. Vicious glanced back at the container again, his eyes still not seeing anything, and then followed.

_"This is a waste of time." _

* * *

For anyone who didn't know(like me before I looked it up) a supercenteranian is a person who is older than 110.


	4. Home dirty home

_"This is a waste of time" _I think again while flying my ship through the slums of Tharsis, towards my rarely-used home.

Contrary to the castle-like homesteads of those three dust-buckets, my abode is much more modest.

It is where Spike and I used to live together, later joined by… someone else.

Over time I eventually bought out the whole building but I only really use the one apartment.

It's strange; most people would probably expect the holder of the second-highest ranking in the Red Dragon to live like a god.

_"What use is there in having an extravagant home? When you wake up, or die as other people call it, all you do is rot."_

The apartment is only a few blocks away and I begin to wonder, my body having already taken over the piloting on its own, what it is that's inside the coffin.

If it was just a regular body it would have been buried already, or at the very least, considering how elaborate it is, wouldn't be kept in the depths of a warehouse.

_"As much as those corpses look down on me, I doubt they would give me a pointless task just as an attempt to show me some 'humility'."_

The rubbery smell of the inside of my ship, Silver Streak, makes it somewhat of a tiring experience to keep my eyes open and watch the sky.

_"How many days is this? Five? Seven?" _I think to myself, wondering how many nights I've been up.

The longest my body has ever lasted is about nine days, then it collapsed on itself and didn't allow me to move or even think, something that wold probably stress most others out, as it happened while I was being shot at. Luckily, a partner had been there as well.

My hands lower the controls of the ship, bringing it down onto the sidewalk outside the apartment building.

Normally in a place like this it would get stolen the minute I was out of site. In fact, someone _did _a while ago.

Of course, I didn't just _let _the person take the ship and keep it. A few hours, and a few calls, later I knew where the person had taken it; a pawn shop.

How someone could be so stupid as to try and sell a space ship, even if only meant for one person, to the owner of a shop where the biggest thing he has is a tabletop Buddha statue I'm unsure of. But that's what he did.

_"He said he needed the money for his family but even if it wasn't for drugs or something I didn't really care."_

I think about it and my mouth curves upwards slightly.

First I shot the man, having not made the switch to blades by that point, and then I killed the pawn-shop owner, just to make a statement. For the hell of it I set the building on fire and gave them a nice cozy funeral pyre.

It _worked _too. After that one little instance no one has given my spacecraft so much as a second _glance_ after I land it.

Silver Streak settles down completely on the aged concrete and I flip a switch.

A hiss sounds out in the small flight deck and a second later the Evlo-glass door on my left slides out and allows me to exit.

Evlo-glass is a material somewhat similar to ancient Plexiglas, but it's much tougher and completely airtight, something needed in crafts that go into space. They are even used in the massive spaceships that are meant to harbor smaller ones like mine.

I grab the hilt of the katana by my side and pull it out of its stuck position inside the ship, stepping down out of the vehicle onto the pavement.

Looking around it seems like no one is nearby and I twist the key in the ship's ignition, turning it off.

_"I hate it when there's nothing to do. It's like dreaming about cleaning the house; there isn't any excitement."_

I pull the key out of the ignition and slide it into a pocket in my coat before stepping away from the aircraft, the door closing automatically once I've walked a few feet away.

The apartment building doesn't have much of a design; it's made of brick possibly older than those three ancient "elders" and the once-prevalent red tone of them has faded to a warm-colored brown similar to the appearance of clay. Possibly the only feature on the exterior that stands out is the dozen or so steps that lead to old boarded-up double doors.

Walking up the steps, my eyes wander and notice something somewhat shiny to the side of the steps; its once-golden sheen dulled to a dirty bronze.

The goblet-like cup has words engraved on it which, despite my best efforts, I begin to read.

_"Billiards competition co-winners, Vicious and Spi-" _

I reach the doors and breath heavy, waiting a few seconds.

My eyes roll from one thing to another until I manage to open the door, yanking the elderly-wooden construct on its squeaky hinges open.

Stepping inside, I push the door closed again and then turn around, reaching out and turning the first lock. The hand continues to the second, and then the third, the fourth, the fifth.

Half-a-dozen more and I put a board through two braces on both doors and turn around again, now facing the staircase.

It, like the outside, is not all that interesting. The rectangular dull-colored steps lead up to one corner, then turn to the left and continue.

The apartments of the building are all on the second floor and higher, only one door and one apartment per floor, until it reaches the tenth and top floor, where I live, and where a second rotting piece of board leads up to the roof.

At the bottom on the first floor are a utility closet and a padlocked door to the basement of the building. As well as what's obviously the entrance and exit to the relatively-small complex.

My legs drag themselves up through the air before letting gravity pull them down to the step above and continue doing so as I ascend the staircase.

_"I wonder if the coffin will be secure out in my ship. Though it'll keep any of those street-urchins away if there really is someone after it, or possibly even another syndicate, a trunk lid won't do much in the ways of protecting it."_

I shake my head and keep making my way up towards the top floor.

_"There's no reason to worry about it; just another meaningless thing in this meaningless life. If people come after it I'll have something to do. If they don't I wait until those dust-figures give me a different assignment or I find another thing to keep me busy."_

Finally I make it to the top floor and my eyes gaze up at the door, somehow seeming to be the best-taken-care-of but still the ugliest one in the building.

"_Heh. Whatever." _I say while pulling the door open.

There is a lock and a key for the door but I have no use for them as no one would ever try and come after me anyway.

_"It's too bad. I miss the days when random strangers would try to come and mug or murder me all the time. It gave things an enjoyable variety of events to look forward to in the day."_

The apartment, while larger than the others, could hardly be considered along the lines of a penthouse suite; a hallway with bare wooden floorboards, crème-colored walls and four doors that lead to the bathroom, kitchen, bedroom and apartment hall are what it consists of.

A couch, a bed, an aged radio, the oven, refrigerator and some lights are the only real furnishings. Though there _is _a _window _in the bedroom.

I don't particularly care though as I pull off my coat and toss it across the hall onto the couch and open the door to the bedroom.

Passing the closet that stores my clothes; I twist my body and lie down on the bed, leaning the katana against the side of it as I do so.

My eyes stare up at the ceiling as I try to go to sleep. But despite how tired my body is, my mind isn't willing to rest.

_"If it isn't some kind of drug perhaps it is a new type of weapon; an experimental one that those "van" don't want anyone else to have."_

The eyes drift close and my mind goes blank.

Honestly, they're tired of looking at the ceiling.

_I'm _tired of looking at the _world _that it _belongs _to.

"It's all just a dream. When the end of it comes, we wake up."

I scoff.

"I must be a deep sleeper."


	5. Mummy's welcome curse

My eyes drift open as I "wake up" and look around the room from the corner of my vision.

No one's there.

Realizing this, I sit up and put a hand over my face.

From the orange streams of light that come down through the window in the room, I can tell that it must be dusk already.

_"About eight hours. That should be enough." _I think, guessing how much sleep I'd gotten.

My legs almost slide _themselves _over the edge of the bed and I step down onto the floor, picking up the sheathed katana leaning against the side of the bed as I do so.

_"I'll go see if anyone is having any violence-related troubles, if they aren't I suppose I could always go "mole hunting" again like the other night."_

However, that's the last thing I want to do, aside from baby-sit "Grand Elder Bones" that is.

Walking across the floor and opening the door back to the main room of the apartment, I wonder if it'll make my trunk stink like road kill.

_"Unlikely. They probably embalmed it or something like that."_

Having enough of guessing the smell of the corpse, I walk across the room and through the archway into the kitchen, opening the refrigerator and pulling a steak out of the freezer portion.

The hand that's holding the katana leans it against the counter of the room and turns the knob on the stove.

I grab a pan of some kind and shove the steak into it before tossing it onto a burner and turning it on.

Really I've never been too picky about my food, so long as it's either meat or bread I don't care. But going through the pain of _making _the more complicated meals gets a bit tiring.

Not having a TV or anything to read is somewhat upsetting now as I wait for the meat to cook, but I walk back into the main room and turn the old radio on.

Spike and I used to listen to the radio a long time ago when we were younger, back before we could afford a TV. For some reason I never really wanted to throw this out.

On the same wavelength, at the same frequency, on the same station it lilts out a wordless-yet-powerful jazz song into the room.

_"Or is it called "blues"? I don't remember."_

Shrugging internally, I walk back into the kitchen and pull something out of a cupboard before sitting down in one of the three chairs in the room.

I pull the Katana onto the table that the chairs rest by and let the thing I pulled out of the cupboard, the sword sharpening kit, fall onto the wooden table.

My hands pull the sword and the sheath apart and then set the scabbard down on the table before resting the blade on it as well, tip-up.

For some reason when I do this I feel like I'm spending time with a friend more than just honing a blade.

I begin to go through the process of oiling, cleaning and sharpening the weapon as the stove cooks the steak and the radio fills the room with music.

This continues until I finish with sharpening the blade and slide it back into its sheath.

A second later the stove beeps out that it is finished and I walk over to it, pulling a plate out of the sink next to it and letting it clatter down next to the pan.

I turn off the stove, dumb the steak onto the plate, and grab a fork and knife before walking back over to the table, setting everything down on it.

Though a washing machine would be more efficient for cleaning things, the apartment never came with one and it would be a pain to get one installed. Not-to-mention I'm never really here anyway.

_"I hate having all this free time." _I grumble inside my head before cutting the meat and eating it.

My meal continues until the steak is all gone and everything else is back in the sink.

I toss the cleaning kit back onto the counter, pick up my sword and walk over to the radio, turning it off.

_"This life is like being in a noire version of limbo." _

Pulling my coat on, I push the door to my apartment open and walk back down the stairs as I finish getting it back on.

The trip down takes a few minutes on account of me walking at a normal pace the whole way but I don't mind, it isn't as if I have anything important to do.

From outside I hear the sound of a loud moving truck and wonder if I'm going to be having a neighbor.

To be honest, I don't really _care_, but it's curious enough that someone would actually _want _to move into an area like this.

_"I suppose if there's nothing else to do I could go over to Mao's. He may be a toothless dog now in terms of ferocity but it's better than those quicksand molds of so-called leaders. He might even know about some kind of assassination operation going on."_

My free hand quickly makes its way through the process of unlocking the door before I open it and see that someone _does _appear to be moving in; a big moving van and two men wearing bodysuits with the logo of a local moving company on them who are carrying a large rectangular box can be seen without even turning my head.

I glance over at my craft as I walk down the steps and don't notice anything missing from it as I do so.

Every now and then there will be people who go somewhere early in the morning or later at night pretending to move into an area when in fact they may be taking apart neighborhood cars or spacecrafts and taking them away.

Strangely enough though, the men who are carrying the box are walking _towards _the van, and they're coming from my right.

I glance over at the ship and see a rectangle, the trunk's lid, slightly ajar in the back of the Silver Streak.

_"I see." _

"Hey, you dropped something." I say while walking towards them, pulling the sheath out from behind my back.

The one facing away from me begins to turn around, but I slice upwards through his arm and his chest before he can pull his handgun out.

The other carrier drops his end of the box and pulls a pistol out of one of the bigger pockets in the bodysuit.

I dive forward, rolling across the ground before coming up right in front of him and slashing diagonally across his torso.

He drops the gun even as the driver's side door opens and a third person begins firing at me.

Once again I roll, but this time it's to the back blind spot of the truck.

"_This doesn't seem like it's going to be so boring after all." _I think while hopping up into the back of the van and setting the sword down on the bottom.

I snap something together in my pocket before pulling a vial of Red Eye out and screwing it into the dispenser.

The crimson mist goes into one eye, and then the other.

I tuck the dispenser back into a pocket and hear the sounds of guns firing and bullets ripping holes through from the front into the back of the van, towards me.

But they're all too slow. Before the bullets even get the chance to splatter into the stone building behind me I dash through the back part of the van and thrust an arm through the "wall" into the cab at the front.

I can't see if there's blood on my hands because of the color tint to my vision, but a crunching sound and a wet, mushy feeling tells me that I hit what I was aiming at and the driver gurgles out blood before I push him into the other shooter; sending them both out of the vehicle and down onto the street.

A smirk slits its way across my face as I leap through the truck's wall and descend upon the last surviving member of the move/hit team.

He manages to fire at me once or twice but it doesn't matter.

The bullets zip wide over my head and my hands grabs his throat and gun hand at the same time.

I glance back into the trashed part of the van meant to hold furniture and see a metal bracket for a shelf sticking out.

The smirk widens and I whip around, throwing the man into the van and impaling him on the bracket like a pig's carcass on a meat hook.

_"I doubt he'd be as delicious as bacon but oh well." _I joke, something rarer than a solar eclipse.

Once again the drug fades from my system and I walk around the truck, picking up the sword and sliding it back into the sheath as I do so.

All in all it's not a bad beginning to my "day". Four people aren't exactly filling but it's a start.

I look around and spot the box that the first two had been carrying, buried underneath their corpses.

Internally shrugging, I walk over to it and push their bodies off of the thing.

It looks like part of the box and coffin were crunched inward a bit when they fell on it, but other than that there shouldn't be much to worry about.

_"Though those "V__an" had better hope, for your sake, that you weren't wearing white. Blood is a very difficult thing to get out. Heh."_

Some of the adrenaline is still left in my body and I pull the coffin, covering box and all, back towards the ship.

After some thinking though, I decide to drag it up the steps of the apartment, open the door, and set it down inside.

I thrust a hand into a pocket and pull out the key to the utility shed's green-wooded door and unlock and open it.

Then the box gets slid inside and I close and re-lock it, putting the key back into my pocket.

_"This way the coffin stays out of my way and I get people to come after me anyway." _I think while getting my cell phone out and dialing Lin's number. He's an officer in the syndicate who used to be under Spike.

"Are you available?" I ask him, foregoing the greetings people usually give.

"Yes, if you need me to help you." He responds with a tone like a soldier talking to their "superior" in the military.

"I want to get some bodies cleaned up around where I live. It's outside the apartment building."

"I understand…"

"Something wrong?" I ask, wondering if I'll get the chance to take part in some kind of strike on another syndicate's headquarters. Or defending our own.

"Oh, no. It's just that I thought it would be something of greater importance."

I wait a few seconds before speaking again, walking over to my ship and opening the Evlo-glass door to get inside.

"Watch over the building then. There's something inside that I'm suppose to take care of."

"Something important?"

I put the ship's key into the ignition slot and turn it, bringing the craft to life.

"Those old clowns seem to think me a mortician now; they gave me some coffin to look after. But it's "safer" there."

When I heard Lin take in a breath I knew I'd said the right thing; he was so dedicated to the syndicate I could tell him to watch over a _toilet _and he'd comply.

"I'll get there as soon as I can."

With that I close the cell phone again and pull my ship up into the sky as the door closes.

_"That mummy in the coffin seems to have given me something to do after all."_


	6. Limbo

The "Van", leaders of a criminal syndicate which specializes in assassinations; "You still have that last assignment we gave you. That should be your highest and _only _priority."

Mao Yenrai, long ago known as the "Saber-toothed Tiger of Tharsis", a nickname given because he would have extended canines grafted onto his normal teeth and would bite those who had betrayed the syndicate, tearing the teeth apart and leaving the inch-long extensions in the victim's neck until they bled out; "I'm going to be on Jupiter speaking with a representative of the White Snake syndicate. Hopefully we can become allies, or at the very least form a truce. You're welcome to come with me if you'd like."

Street-gang leaders, politicians, the Tharsis government, private groups whose business were based on murders… no one wanted or required any fighting to be done.

And there hadn't been any more hit-teams or kidnapping teams sent after him since that first one.

There was absolutely no one to fight, and _that_…bothered me.

"_This whole planet's gone soft. The universe is probably just like it." _I think while flying back to my apartment, wanting someone to be following me.

"_Syndicates shouldn't be protecting corpses, or trying to make truces, or just plain acting like some charity organization. We should all be fighting one another. Or if not, we should want to."_

But apparently no one else agrees with me.

Even the war on Titan is over now, something that dragged on for years and years.

"_Groups of people who wanted a special mineral found only on that moon, and they all withdrew without so much as an oil refinery being built."_

The neighborhoods fly by as I head back to the apartment building, irritated that I'm coming back twice in the same day.

"_I haven't done that since… for a long time."_

The sky, now mostly black with a few lingering traces of purple from dusk, at least doesn't hurt my eyes as I continue through the sky.

Of course, there are _always _drug deals or smuggling operations to take part in, but I want something that requires more than making a scary face and picking up some illegal painkillers or woolongs.

"_Right now, the most interesting option open to me is to play cards or tag with the mummy in the utility closet." _

For once I think about how bad a situation this is, despite my usual non-complaining nature.

The approaching out-of-place water tower on the roof of my apartment building tells me I'll be there in a few seconds, and I don't see any ships, cars, or suspicious-looking people in sight; only Lin's space craft which is parked on the side of the street.

"_No one's coming after me." _I think while bringing the Silver Streak to a stop in mid-air before setting it down at the edge of the street.

I go through the usual routine, turning the craft off, opening the door, getting out and then hopping down to the sidewalk as the door closes.

My eyes glance upwards at the doors, seeing that they aren't broken in or open, and I wonder how this corpse could possibly be worth so much if whoever is after it is only willing to send one little team to pick it up.

Slowly I make my way up the steps, solid steady feet moving from one step to the other as opposed to the tired "shuffle" I'd used yesterday.

"_Or was it earlier today?" _I wonder, not caring.

The simple fact that I'm doing such a thing is _alone _evidence of how hopeless my situation is.

This time my eyes stay focused ahead of me, not straying to the cup or "trophy" as most may call it buried in the garbage next to the steps.

"_Ironic, it's the one thing I want people to steal, but because of who I am, they won't even guess how much it's worth."_ I think as a hand turns the knob.

But I notice that the door is locked.

However, any semblances of excitement or interest that I begin to have vanish when I remember I told Lin to watch over the place.

So instead I knock on the door once with the back of my hand, hearing a few footsteps coming to the side of the door.

"Who is it?" His voice asks from inside.

"I'm back." I respond dryly, a tone people don't usually use when they've asked another to watch over their home.

"_Does it really matter?" _I ask myself as the locks on the other side are undone and the door opens.

"Vicious, did you do what you went out for?" He asks as I walk in, having learned by now that I don't engage in "chit-chat"

"No. There isn't anything to do. I've been over the whole planet it seems and everything is completely quiet."

"_Quiet meaning there's nothing remotely interesting to do."_

"I see." He responds as I come in and once again close and lock the door, though I only slide one closed.

"No one came looking for it?" I ask the second the small bar is across the door.

He shakes his head.

"No. I thought I saw a car surveying the building, as it looked like the same one kept coming by, but unless they keep changing license plates I guess the cars were different ones."

My eyes look at the utility closet.

"But…" They slide back to gaze at Lin, a strange look on his face.

"What is it?" I ask, the interest inaudible through the razor-sharp tone.

"I kept hearing…sounds…coming from the closet under the stairs.

My eyes would show curiosity if I was the type to convey my rare emotions through anything but a smirk.

"A rat perhaps." I say without a change in facial expression.

He shakes his head, something I'm actually surprised by; he'd never shaken his head at me before.

"_I don't care about that. But he never showed any signs of disagreeing with me before because of my higher rank in the syndicate. Why now?"_

"Rats usually gnaw on things when they move from one place to another, whether it's eating or just trying to get through something. But I recognize those sounds…"

"Then?… What is it?" I ask, the curiosity masked by my reluctance for his little riddle.

"It sounds like a raccoon."

A smirk twitches at the edge of my brain, never reaching my mouth.

"_And here I was thinking I was going to be the star of "The mummy from the utility closet"."_

"I see."

"It's strange though, they usually live in the wilderness. I'm surprised that one would be here."

My gaze goes back to the utility closet for a second before I turn away, towards the stairs.

"I'm going up to my apartment." Is all I say while walking towards the bottom steps.

"Would you like me to call an exterminator, Vicious?" He asks from behind me.

"No. I'll take care of it later."

"What are you going to do now?"

My feet stop climbing the steps.

"Nothing."

Though Lin doesn't respond, I can feel there's something he wants to mention.

"What is it?" I ask, not in the mood for waiting.

"Well, I don't have any active assignments. If you wanted to go to the pool hall…"

"_I see." _

"It's Friday." I state, remembering that Spike, I, Lin and his younger brother, Shin, used to frequent a nearby pool hall when we had nothing to do on Friday nights.

"_But that's where we met…" _

"Perhaps some other time. I don't really play pool anymore." I say before ascending the stairs again.

"I understand." He speaks from down below before I hear the door of the building open and then close, eventually followed by the sound of his space craft turning on.

In truth, I haven't played pool at _all _since Spike "died". After that I just lost interest for some reason.

But it doesn't really matter to me as I once again enter my apartment and go through the same routine as before; as _always_.

My coat finds its way onto a chair and I enter the bedroom, propping the katana up against the frame as I lay down on the bedding.

Like before, my eyes gaze up at the ceiling for minutes or hours as I try and fall asleep for the second time in less than two days.

Eventually, after what feels like an eternity, they begin to drift closed.

"A raccoon huh?"


	7. Latenight invasion

I awake, for the first time in years, to the sound of the door being broken in downstairs. From the sounds of it, a small breaching charge was used.

My exhaustion is stronger now than ever, but the only effects it has on my body is that my facial expression involves a grin instead of a wild smirk as I get out of bed.

The benefits of living several stories up from the most obvious entry point are immediately relevant to me as I can easily hear a dozen or so people running up the apartment stairs, likely heading for the first apartment they can reach.

I take hold of the katana and fluidly open the door to my room and go out into the main area of the apartment, reaching the door quickly.

Downstairs the invaders can be heard breaking into the first apartment they reach. A moment later, an explosion sounds and most if not all of the assassins are likely dead in the resulting blast.

"_Such inexperienced people." _I think, beginning to open the door of my apartment. As I do, however, I hear the sound of a detonator up on the roof of the building, and dive away from the doorway as the wooden construct is blown and splintered inward.

Most of the pieces either fly over me, or are small enough that my clothes keep them from penetrating, but one piece in particular is somewhat imbedded in my leg as pieces of plaster and concrete drop from the ceiling of the hallway.

The leg wound hurts, but I ignore the pain as I get back on my feet, balanced, and I watch as men with guns hop down through the hole in the ceiling.

Quickly, I move over to the side of the doorframe and press myself against it before any of them can take notice of me.

"_A few seconds." _I think.

Sure enough, when I unsheathe my katana thrust it behind me, around the doorframe, I feel it penetrate someone's body and hear a squelching sound.

I don't need Bloody Eye to get just a tad bit excited.

Moving away from my spot near the door, I push the assassin into the man behind him, withdrawing the katana from him as I do so, and slash upward towards the nearest man to my right.

A deep gash open vertically across his body, and his response of a gunshot goes wide as I kick him in the man behind _him _and whirl around, glaring at the lone gunman by the staircase.

He fires a single shot from his handgun, grazing my shoulder and just barely causing me to wince as I thrust forward with the sheathe of my katana, striking him between the ribs.

The man drops his gun following the crunching sound and falls backwards, down the stairs as I once again turn about.

The man beneath the first one I killed manages to get his hands free and shoots at me, but I let go of the sheathe and pull my arm out of the way, knowing that they were his easiest targets from his position.

As the sheathe tumbles down the stairs, following the likely dead assassin, I stab through one dead man's body and _create another_.

Another shot sounds from his gun, splintering off a piece of the wood imbedded in my leg.

I withdraw the bloodied katana from their bodies by pushing off the top one with a leg, as the final "able-bodied" man frees himself and trains his gun on me.

For a moment the sights are aimed at my head.

I'm gone the next second, through the doorway and down across the wall.

Before he knows what's going on, I thrust the katana through the old wall, into his torso.

He gives a gasp of surprise as the blade punctures one or more of his vital organs, and blacks out as his body dies while I once more withdraw the blade from a corpse.

"_Small wounds aside, not very interesting." _I tell their bodies.

Though their rooftop breach was a bit more impressive than the amateurs down at ground level.

I start back towards my room before realizing that the sheathe for my katana fell down the stairs.

No sigh comes from me as I decide to go downstairs and get it.

"_From the heavy breathing I hear coming from the bottom floor, it seems I'll be able to 'tie up loose ends' as well." _

I walk down the steps, slowly, and the now-terrified assassin tries to crawl down the steps himself, trying to escape.

"_Pathetic."_

Blood drips from the edge of my blade, warming the cold steel to the point where my heart is colder than the previously chilled metal.

He gives unintelligible grunts and gasps as I grow closer to him, passing by the scene of carnage of the apartment closest to the first floor and the blackened husks of the room within.

The man manages to reach the cold floor below the steps, but a quick sword swipe from me forces him to dodge in the opposite direction of the doorway, slamming his body against the utility closet.

"W- wait. I can tell you who sent us!"

I reach the tile floor beneath the steps as well, my footsteps sounding louder than they might have usually seemed.

Turning towards him, I see into his weak, cowardly eyes as he slides himself up the utility closet's door.

"I- I can-"

The sword thrusts up, through his body and the door of the utility closet, cutting him short. My cold stare tells him that pity doesn't work on me as his own eyes fade and the dead man falls forward.

Once I'm sure he's dead, and I see the sheathe on the floor, I begin to withdraw my sword, but it feels like it's stuck in something else.

"_Strange."_

The door to the utility closet wasn't particularly thick, but maybe it was enough that it would make it harder to pull the blade free.

I place a foot on the chest of the dead man, and manage to pull the blade free, allowing his corpse to fall to the floor.

It only takes a few moments for me to swipe the sword horizontally through the air, getting any extra blood out of it, and then to sheathe it once more.

An internal sigh almost sounds in my mind as I turn around, heading back to, and then up the staircase.

"_Hopefully they'll continue getting bolder; perhaps next time the fight will be worth 'waking up'." _I think, heading upstairs for what feels like the millionth time.

* * *

I hadn't so much abandoned the story, as left it alone, since I thought no one liked it. Add to that my general situation of immense writer's block in recent history. But I'll try to post some more chapters for this story. I apologize for the short chapters and such.


	8. Nightmare

I wake up to the sound of another crash in the same day.

This is different, however.

In the emptiness of my mind while I "slept" I heard the sound on pounding footsteps growing closer and closer, and of men speaking to each other in short, quick phrases, those seeming to grow closer as well. I heard the sounds of guns cocking, and of doors being broken in, and of bullets being fired.

I heard all of these while I was dreaming, registering them as mere facets of imagination, like a vision that was supposed to be a nightmare, yet was absorbed in the wrong way by the brain.

When that special crash sounded, however, I noticed something very different; I began to hear screams. At first men gave noises of confusion, and sounded unthreatened. However, within moments, I heard their noises, voices, change, from disciplined thinkers, to agonized dying men.

Despite the fact that I was awake, my body would not move for some reason; it was as if my mind were so fixated on the sounds coming from throughout the building, quickly drawing closer, that it could not do anything else.

Gunshots continued, as did the pounding feet, but their short phrases were replaced by tortured wails and terrified screams. Within a minute or so, everything seemed to have died away. All except for the squeaky little pats of a single man's footsteps coming through my apartment. His steps were uneven, and from his mutterings he sounded unstable.

I felt my heart pulsate, and with that vibration my body felt like it could move again; I reached down towards my katana, keeping my body low as I saw his body walk into the doorway, framed in it-

-his eyes grew wide before and during his sudden trip through the air, over Vicious' bed, and out my window. There was minimal screaming as he descended the multiple stories of the apartment building all the way to the bottom. Following the sound of crunching bones and a final, exasperated gasp, there was nothing else.

My hand took hold of the katana, and I got out of bed as I thought _"What the hell?"_ and slowly made my way towards the doorframe.

It was nighttime and the lights were off; it was almost completely pitch black, with the only thing illumination available being the faint glow of streetlights below coming through my bedroom window.

I turned to the right, facing out into the majority of my apartment.

Out of nowhere came a strike of lightning, and for a moment I saw two glowing orbs in the hallway.

The light faded, and they seemed to vanish.

I slowly walked across my apartment, my cautious steps causing the floorboards to creak, as I look from left to right to make sure no one lay in hiding.

In the hall are the corpses of the men I'd slain several hours ago, the unique smell of death permeating from them. To my right lay the hole in the ceiling, the moon strangely positioned so that its light could shine down through it.

Something blows up on the roof, like a black flag, but when I look towards it, nothing remains.

"_A hunter, hm?" _I think, noticing how paranoid I've gotten since the beginning of this little "nightmare".

I ignore the hole in the ceiling and start to turn towards the staircase, and the tunneling darkness it brings-

-a sound of something landing comes from behind me, and I whirl around, drawing my katana-

-it's a raindrop; in the moonlight the blood of the men that lay on the floor flows slightly, and tiny waves form in the pool, as the single raindrop falls into it, soon joined by others.

"_After lightning, rain shouldn't come as much of a surprise." _I think, once more turning back towards the staircase.

Even from the closed vantage point of mine I can see broken railings and blood splotches on the floors and walls, coordinating with the various corpses along the stairway which weren't there when I last slept. They look the same as the others, dressed in suits, which means they are all obviously from the same organization.

The question of who killed them all lingers in my mind as I descend the staircase, step by step, making sure to both maintain my balance and my hold on the katana.

Most people sweat when they're stressed or suspicious of their circumstances; my skin grows drier, becoming more sensitive to the environment as I survey my surroundings.

Almost immediately I spot a corpse on the wall, suspended over twenty feet above the staircase by what appears to be a piece of the damaged railing. Blood drips from his wound as his gun finally falls from his dead hand, descended through the air and hitting the floor below with a clattering sound. The discharge following that doesn't surprise or distract me as I make my way past the first apartment doorway which I encounter.

Lightning flashes again, illuminating the apartment with a burst of light through its window; the pure white contrasting with the glistening red as it shows the gruesome scene within.

The light fades once more, and I shift my attention away from the room just in time to see a corpse thrown out through the doorway of the apartment down the next flight of stairs.

I don't waste any time; I abandon the cautious, balanced steps of my previous approach and advance down the steps quickly even as the corpse which smacked into the wall slid down it, leaving a smear of blood behind it.

Drawing the katana, I dash in front of the opening, once again seeing those two glistening orbs in the absolute darkness. _This _time however, I don't allow them to disappear before I thrust the tip of the blade between them. My connection with the katana allows me to feel it drawing towards its target, right before the orbs "closed" and it struck empty air.

"_Where the hell could it have-"_

"Here." Something whispers to my left, and I spin towards it, only to see those orbs again and feel something strike me off the landing, into a wall.

Even _I _can't help but grunt both when I'm hit and when I collide with the wall. It is only by chance that I'm lucky enough to only be four or so feet above the next landing, and when I hit the floor, I exhale all of the air which I'd held during my short trip through the air.

My chest and back ache from their collisions, but it doesn't stop me from snapping my head up and holding my katana out in front of me, ready to continue the battle started by my assailant.

The orbs are gone, the steps to their previous position now leading to nothing but darkness.

What begins to seem like a scowl starts forming on my face as I realize it both hit me and managed to get away clean.

"_It certainly seems I got the thrill I was asking for. What a shame it is that I don't have any Bloody Eye handy for the occasion." _"Where have you gone? Don't tell me someone with such dangerous potential as you needs to hide in the darkness to be effective in combat." I goad it, a natural reaction to lure it out of hiding. As expected, however, it doesn't work.

"_It hasn't shown any signs of having ranged capabilities; if necessary, I could just wait here for it to reveal itself. However…" _

I dash away from my previous position, trying to make my way down towards the bottom story; whoever it is, it seems to have the advantage in these tight, dark spaces. My own advantage is outside on the street, where there are lights and more open space in which I can fight.

My feet pound into the landings and steps as I rush down the stairs towards the bottom.

I pass a doorway, and the lightning flashes once more, again illuminating those glistening orbs which signify another attack. It's all that I can do to bring my sheathe and katana in front of me as it strikes through the wooden scabbard, breaking it, and sends me off into a wall again, this time two stories above nothing but the floor below.

Once again I grunt both times, but when I fall from the wall this time, and crash into the tiled floor below, all of my breath is forced from me at once.

My elbows and knees ache from absorbing the brunt of the impact, but I still feel a small trickle of blood trailing down from my hairline.

With a grunt of both anger and determination, I pull the small throwing knife from the remains of the scabbard, once its hiding place, and throw it up towards the doorway of the apartment and through it. But once again the orbs close and the attack misses, this time impaling itself in the ceiling of the apartment ceiling within.

"_Damnit!"_

My breathing comes heavily, but my vision isn't fading yet, and my wounds are painful, but do not overtly affect my mobility; I can still fight fine.

I'm paying attention to everything at once, watching and waiting for something- anything to move so that I can rend it to pieces. I notice nothing moving, but I _do _notice a spot of darkness where it seems deeper than the rest to my side.

"_In the utility closet."_

The realization that whatever I was guarding all this time had been what killed all of those men and had _almost _killed _me_ hits me as hard as both the strikes did, while I rise to my feet.

"_An assassin kept sedated perhaps? No, it's far too mobile. Something created through genetic engineering?"_

The possibilities whir through my head for a second before I abandon them; they'll only get in the way of my concentration.

"_Outside."_

I glance around one last time before I start for the damaged doorway.

"_Stop!"_

My feet- my _body _does as commanded as I hear something land behind me, quietly.

"_Using the appeal of the open surroundings to box me in; how ironic."_

The sword hand tightens its grip as I prepare to thrust it behind me, but just as the motion begins, I feel something which causes the hand to relax, almost dropping the sword; a hand comes around me and places itself on my chest, as another one comes up beneath my arm and goes over my collarbone.

Both of the hands feel like they're there to comfort me, not hold me, which is what causes me to hesitate before I feel breath on my neck, and two things puncture it.

My eyes bulge as blood flows from my carotid artery through the openings created by the two fangs in my neck.

I realize that that's exactly what they are; fangs. And the irony that my life was once saved by someone famous for using them, and was now going to end by someone else, momentarily flashed through my mind. Then I lose enough blood to stop being able to think intelligently, and an elbow flies into the stomach of my captor, separating us long enough for me to pull away and spin around, slashing across the biter's neck and opening a huge gash in it as I myself start to descend towards the floor.

A grunt comes from me as I thrust a leg out behind to keep my body from falling to the floor, if only for a few moments.

The blue orbs fade, revealed to be eyes, as the black "flag" envelops the assailant on its descent back into the coffin.

I remain standing just long enough to make sure that the figure won't rise again, and then I fall forward to, hitting the hard tile with my skull this time.

A cracking sound goes out into the air, and then my vision and mind go blank.


End file.
